Treasure Trove: Radio for the people of East Timor

In East Timor in the late seventies Radio Maubere was run by the Fretilin to do all this and more.

"Maubere" is the Tetum word signifying the people, or peasant-folk of Timor. It was adopted by the Timorese liberation movement, Fretilin, as the moniker of their radio station which broadcast from September 1975 to 12 December 1978.

For Treasure Trove this week, Vincent Plush, Manager of the National Film and Sound Archives scholars and artist in residence program, told 666 Drive listeners the story of Radio Maubere.

Also joining in the conversation was Martin Wesley-Smith, brother of Rob Wesley-Smith who was involved in transmitting the radio programs.

In 1975, members of the Communist Party of Australia foresaw the imminence of an Indonesian invasion and donated a radio transmitter to Fretilin. When the Indonesians arrived, in December 1975, this radio was used by Fretilin's Minister for Communications Alarico Fernandes and transmissions continued from various positions in the mountain regions outside Dili, beyond the immediate reach of the Indonesian military.

This continued until 12 December 1978 when the radio operation was closed down by Indonesian troops and its operators captured. But over that time, the Timorese had managed to maintain two-way contact with a group of Australian and East Timorese activists operating a clandestine radio receiver at various locations outside Darwin.

Radio Maubere broadcasts were in a mixture of English and Tetum. Many contained coded Fretilin messages and, for a period, were the only link Fretilin had with the outside world and the only news of events in Timor Leste not filtered through Indonesian media.

These broadcasts were transcribed for the press and recorded in Darwin by the Campaign for an Independent East Timor. The tapes were passed on to the journalist Denis Freney (1936-95) who, in turn, gave them to the Timor Information Service. All 192 analogue cassettes were lodged with the NFSA in January 2002 by John Waddingham, the Perth-based journalist-activist and publisher of the Timor Information Service.

The radio receiver was donated to the NFSA in December 2007 by Robert Wesley-Smith (aka Rob Wesley), elder brother of composer Martin Wesley-Smith, and a leading member of the Campaign for an Independent East Timor in Darwin. Today, Rob is a leading figure in the group Australians for a Free East Timor.